Dying Animal, The by Roth Philip

Author:Roth, Philip [Roth, Philip]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Modern Classics, Novel
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Published: 2001-01-30T02:00:00+00:00

My affair with Consuela lasted for a little more than a year and a half. Only occasionally did we ever again go out for dinner or to the theater. She was too afraid of the prying press and of winding up on Page Six, and that was fine with me, because whenever I saw her I always wanted to fuck her right away and not have first to sit through some shitty play. “You know how the media are, you know what they do to people, and if I go there with you . . .” “Fine, don’t worry,” I would say agreeably, “we’ll just stay home.” Eventually she would stay overnight, and we would have breakfast together. We saw each other once or twice a week, and, even after the incident with the tampon, Carolyn failed to discover Consuela’s existence. Still, I was never at peace about Consuela; never could I forget about the five boys she had fucked before me, two of whom turned out to be brothers, one her lover at eighteen, the other when she was twenty—Cuban brothers, Bergen County’s wealthy Villareal brothers, and another cause for suffering. If it weren’t for the calming influence of Carolyn and our wonderful nights together, I don’t know what would have happened to me.

The agitation of having Consuela—as opposed to the agitation of not having Consuela—ended only when she received her master’s degree and had a party over in New Jersey at her parents’ house. Of course it was as well for both of us that it ended, but it wasn’t my plan to end it, and I was bereft afterward. I was depressed off and on for nearly three years. Tormented all the while I was with her, a hundred times more tormented for having lost her. It was a bad time and it wouldn’t stop. George O’Hearn was an ace. He talked me through many an evening when I found myself getting too low. And I had my piano, which was what pulled me through.

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